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Monday, 3 February 2014

NEW BOOK POINTS TO NEW SWAZILAND

There are not enough books coming out of Swaziland to describe what is
after all a unique culture and society that is, in its present absolute-monarchy-dictated
form, in many ways brutally detrimental and stifling to its population, writes Kenworthy News Media.

Literature from Swaziland, in both English and siSwati, is a relatively
recent phenomenon and those who have had the courage to challenge the status
quo of poverty and repression in Swaziland in their fiction, such as Sarah
Mkhonza, have often been harassed, ordered to stop, and exiled.

There have been many reports on the brutal and undemocratic nature of
Swaziland. But describing a population, a group, a situation can and should be
done in both more overall and more personal ways. By way of statistical,
qualitative measures and methods, sure. But it is also necessary to describe
and thus try to understand the individual to be able to truly understand the
mental set-up of any population or group. And here fiction is indispensable.

In this respect a new semi-autobiographical (but as yet unpublished)
book by SIkelela Dlamini, Nothing to lose,
is a welcome and interesting take on the lives of its main characters, and thus
on Swazi culture and society.

But the book is not simply a comment on Swazi society from the sixties
to the present, but also a highly personal account that is seemingly an attempt
at showing the potential success of Swazis from poor backgrounds by their own means.
Without the aid of the corrupt and repressive culture that is dictated by the
absolute monarchy that runs Swaziland.

It was entered in the Macmillan creative writing contest in Swaziland,
where it was recognized as runner-up in the novel category. The author is
planning to add to the final chapter that includes an elaboration of his own
experiences and direct involvement in the mainstream struggle for a democratic
and just Swaziland.

The book tells the story of Sabela, a boy who is born into a poor and
ultimately broken rural family in the fictitious country of Soshangane, a
country that in many respects is strikingly similar to the point of being
virtually indistinguishable to the author’s native Swaziland.

Sabela grows up in the tough pre-independence sixties where he is
initially is ordered to herd his uncle’s livestock. He also ends up working as
a child labourer cane cutter in neighbouring South Africa, like his father.

The lack of parental love and close friends initially left Sabela
vulnerable, solitary and disorientated, identity-wise. But he nevertheless
manages to belatedly succeed in first primary school, against all odds, and
later in getting first a degree at university in English and History and
eventually a PhD.

For Sabela, school is a “gateway to all things good in life; from
obscurity and the ignominy of poverty and deprivation.” He attributes his
academic success to having learnt to suffer inwardly and persevere to prove
himself outwardly and in the process earn the social recognition that he was
deprived of as a child growing up without his parents.

Throughout the book are many more or less thinly veiled criticisms of
Soshangane society (and by extension to this also of Swaziland) and the
absolute monarchy that controls everything from the economy to the definition
of culture.

The situation of women, and the reasons for Sabela’s mother being barred
from contact with her two sons through a stifling traditional culture that is
more or less dictated by the monarchy, is elaborated upon. “Women are
still largely [and legally] regarded as minors who can’t even access bank loans
without the consent of their husbands or male relatives,” as the narrator
conveys to the reader.

That plight of children is equally criticized, both the corporal punishment
of pupils in Swaziland’s schools and child abuse at home. “Many orphaned
children were actually battered to death and the matter was carefully swept
under the carpet as were other cases of child abuse, including rape without
their knowing neighbours either raising the alarm or coming to the victim’s
rescue,” as the narrator puts it. And according to Sabela, “corporal
punishment finds justification in the wider Soshangane culture … [and even by]
the Ministry of Education.”

Inspired by the reading of South African literature and history at
university, not least the ANC’s struggle for liberation that he is introduced
to by black South African student’s at his university, Sabela begins to the
question the foundations of his own society.

He “suddenly realized that it was possible after all to alter the
circumstances that had held his own family back, subjecting him to all the
exploitation that he had gone through. It started with education.”

After having worked as a High School teacher, attempting to
introduce a more anti-oppressive manner of pedagogy, Sabela becomes a full time
political activist “to bring back democracy to his country,” as he puts it.

Having experienced some of the set-backs that such a line of work
entails, Sabela is left somewhat disheartened at the prospects of a better and
more democratic Soshangane in the near future. He also problematizes the
consequences of being deliberately barred from meaningful job prospects because
he is an activist.

The reason for Sabela’s pessimism in regard to the democratic movement’s
ability to bring about the democratization of Soshangane is due in no small
part to what he describes as the lack of willingness to constructively
criticize and be criticized that he says exists within Soshangane’s democratic
movement, something he says is “one of the fundamental flaws” of people and
culture in Soshangane.

Nevertheless, Sabela admits to the struggle for socio-economic justice
and democracy being a work-in-progress that might be “fraught with errors,” but
is still “firmly on course.”

Having read Sikelela Dlamini’s book, it is clear that any true and
meaningful opposition to the present Swazi regime must also be an educational
and cultural revolution, so to speak. A revolution that not only changes the
political system, but also the mindset and outlook of the population through
art and culture. Political and social change is after all not really truly
possible without either a preceding or simultaneous mental, pedagogical and
cultural change.

You can receive a Word or PDF-copy of the book by mailing Sikelela
Dlamini at: s1kelelad (at) gmail (dot) com

Sikelela Dlamini holds a PhD in Early Childhood Literacy Development from
the University of Cape Town.